


The Echoes of a Moment

by ConsultingCommunist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depressing, Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:19:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingCommunist/pseuds/ConsultingCommunist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A completely description-driven piece about a day spent visiting Sherlock's grave, written in 2nd person about John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Echoes of a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This is mainly to introduce you lovely readers to my style (though I promise it isn't always going to be 2nd Person POV), and to show off a bit of angst I enjoyed writing as a therapeutic process of Reichenbach healing. 
> 
> EDIT: I apologize for any confusion, but I decided this morning I didn't like the title, so I changed it.

The air is thick with the emptiness of promises unfulfilled. Of days once guaranteed but now stolen, taken prematurely and irrevocably to that land beyond life, the land where the dead rest their broken bodies. That’s what this place is: a hallowed hollow place where your loved ones rest beneath the soil and leave you to look at the grass in anger and sadness, wondering why this all had to happen so soon and what you could have done to stop that train that ran off the tracks. Death is a cruel companion, clawing at the skin of the ones you love and dragging them into the hole with their name on it. And yes, that feels horrible, but not nearly as horrible as those left in the dust of the ones who go willingly with death, who handcuff themselves to him and calmly lay back into their coffins after maybe casting a final glance your way or leaving a note (or calling you from a phone that’s later tossed to the ground, the plastic shattering like your heart).

This place signifies a permanence, one that’s reflected in the glossy midnight stone with its precious glimmering letters, spelling out the name of the person you loved and lost while you partially heal but never heal. The world is a darker place without him here without his illuminating thoughts illuminating the world is a darker place without him here. And as you reach to caress the cold stone that everyone thinks is so befitting of a man who constructed his cocoon of ice, you know this to be untrue because you saw the spark in his eyes when he ran down streets and alleyways, the way his face looked more alive than anyone you’d ever known (and you wonder for a moment if he hadn’t lived so much at once, if he could have spread that life out more, could have lasted longer on this worldly plane). You feel the smooth surface of his final effigy, your mind desperately searching for any kind of temporal cure for this wholly temporary world, the world that was too much and not enough for his soul (because you know he had one, no matter what anyone else tells you), the world that pushed him over the edge to find that final escape from everything. The most human human being you’ve ever known is nothing but a soon-to-be-crumbling marker, a monument to the man he once was and the things he once did, the countless lives he’s saved, including your own.

And as you reach to wipe the tears from your eyes (or maybe to hide them, because soldiers don’t cry), you lament on your own actions towards him and wonder if maybe, just maybe, you could have saved him from himself if he had just let you in, just let you get a small peek at the brilliant machinery and gears in his skull. How were you supposed to know that they were counting down to such an early date? How could you have known the extent to which his despair infected his body? You leaned against the wall and laughed with him (and how the memory of that laugh stabs you in the heart now), the sound too loud and happy for you to hear the ticking beneath, the time bomb that everyone else saw and stayed away from. But you’re a glutton for danger, so you clung to him, pressing close and waiting for the blast that you thought wouldn’t come for years. Such a short time for such devotion to develop, for such love to blossom. But you couldn’t help yourself.

So when you go back to those floors you’ve walked a million times and feel the empty space beside you like it’s screaming, and you see the chair that will remain forever unused, you can’t help but wish it were different, wish that he was still here with you, and that’s not guilt. That’s love. The bittersweet and frightening sensation of a love realized too late. You always knew you’d follow him everywhere he went, that you would be his faithful companion in everything. But he’s gone where you can’t follow now, and you’re left behind in the aftershocks of his earthquake, unstable and teetering, unable to commit to living or dying because he wouldn’t want you to follow his example, but you can’t bring yourself to enjoy the alternative.


End file.
